Andrei and the Snow Walker

by Larry Warwaruk

  As the Métis brothers drive off in their wagon, Gabriel waves to Marusia washing the dishes at the slough. She stands still a moment, her fingers gripped to her apron in folds, but one hand releases, and she waves back. Andrei wonders if he’ll see Chi Pete and Gabriel ever again. Now the family is on its own completely, and they have no idea where they are. Soon it will be dark, and who knows what might be out there in the bush? All they have are the belongings they hauled off the wagon and set on the bare ground.

  Where can they sleep? The sky is now even more blue-black, from the clouds thickening and the coming of night. They don’t even have a wagon to crawl under.

  “Under that tree,” Tato says. “Bring the provisions before the flour gets wet.” At the southern end of their small meadow, forty feet away at the forest edge, stands a tall spruce tree. “Help with the trunk.” The family carries it to the tree. The trunk might help to block any wind sweeping in rain from the northwest. Mama digs through the trunk, retrieving feather-filled bed coverings, woven blankets, and sheepskins. All night they lie under the spruce boughs, trying to sleep, and trying to keep out the damp.

  •••

  In the morning they start to build something that will shelter them better than living like a den of foxes. They start on their buda. Dido likes to think he’s an expert when it comes to building a buda. Cossacks used to build budas on their island fortress. They built them in the field, mostly out of willows, mud, and grass. A Scythian warrior lived in a buda. But here with all this forest they can build one very solid, and build it quickly; there will be nothing to it.

  While the men chop trees, Andrei trims off branches. Mama and Marusia try to gather grass dry enough to spread under the spruce. They will have a night or two yet to spend under there, and nobody got much sleep last night. Tato tells Andrei to dig two holes, one for each of the two main upright posts. They are to be twenty feet apart.

  Tato sets a post in the first hole. “Perfect,” he says. He has chosen a poplar with a fork eight feet up its trunk. He sinks the post in the hole two feet deep, and tamps clay and stones around the base. Dido has another post identical to Tato’s, and he waits for Andrei to finish the second hole.

  But it’s not as simple to build a buda as Dido said. Not in the rain. Mama and Marusia can’t find grass dry enough to spread under the spruce. They can’t even find anything dry enough to make a fire. They have to somehow keep the flour, cornmeal, and sugar dry. Last night they put the provisions under the spruce with them and covered everything with sheepskins. And now by mid-morning everybody’s hungry, and they have no fire to cook things on. Mama can’t even fry pancakes.

  “Let’s keep working,” Tato says. “Maybe the sun will come out.”

  Dido and Tato lift a long log onto the forks of the two main posts. Under this beam, it’s Andrei’s job the rest of the day to dig an excavation. The floor of their buda is to be a foot and a half below ground level and five feet wide. He’s to leave an additional three feet all along one side to serve as a bench, and a place where everyone can sleep.

  By noon the sun is out, and with Dido’s help at whittling wood shavings from a dead tree branch, Mama finally has a fire going. They eat pancakes fried in lard, and drink hot tea with sugar. There’s no shortage of water. Sloughs are everywhere, filled from the melted snow of winter.

  After their lunch, Dido and Tato chop more trees for the building. Mama and Marusia dig around the stumps, preparing the soil for a garden. Andrei continues with the floor excavation. The shovelling was easy at first, the soil soft and leafy, but soon the spade hits roots that must be chopped and pulled out, and all the black soil must be cleared from the pit. Andrei’s shirt is damp with sweat.

  By early evening, the sun shines low in a cloudless sky and the buda’s enclosed with poles leaning on each side, supported by the roof beam. Supper is a stew of dumplings and mushrooms. Maybe tomorrow Andrei can snare another bird. They sit around the fire, their clothes finally dry. The sun has dried last year’s old grass, and tonight the family will have soft and dry beds under the spruce.

  On the second day, they cut sod from a hillside. Dido and Tato slice through the sod. They peel it from the soil. The sods are three inches thick, four inches wide, and a foot long. Dido says the roots hold together as well as any sod he’s ever worked with.

  Mama and Marusia lay willows horizontally across the buda’s leaning roof, knotting them securely with thin lengths of green hazelnut branches. Andrei carries sods and he helps lay them on the roof, the first layer grass-side down, the willow keeping the sods from sliding off the roof, the second layer grass-side up. By this time, Tato and Dido are fastening the vertical poles forming each end wall. Tomorrow they will plaster the inside. Tato says they’ll build an oven later. For now it’s good enough to cook outside on the iron ring. In summer it’s better anyway to cook outside.

  The third morning, Andrei and Marusia tramp with bare feet in the pit filled with clay, chopped-up grass, and water. Mama and Tato stand themselves ankle-deep in the mixture, and they plaster the interior roof and end walls of the buda. Dido has started to dig a well beside the slough. By summer they will need a well. The water in the slough’s fresh and clean right now, but by summer it will be stale, or the slough might even be dry by then.

  By mid-afternoon the plastering’s done. A woven blanket serves as a door. Andrei’s dug two steps down from the entry to the floor of the buda. One more night they will sleep under the spruce. By tomorrow evening the clay will be dry enough for the family to sleep on the ledge inside the buda.

  Andrei sets his shovel down and watches Dido struggling to climb out of the well he’s been digging beside the slough. Bending forward, he rolls himself out, his arms extended flat out on the ground, his legs emerging after him, one at a time. He crawls, then rises to his feet, both hands rubbing the small of his back.

  “Water is seeping in already,” he says as he approaches the buda. “I’m down four feet.” He continues to the spruce tree, and crawls under the boughs. Andrei follows, to see him sorting through the belongings in his crate.

  “Hey, Pahn Skomar!” Tato yells from the buda. “Isn’t it about time you showed us what you’re hiding in that bag?” He says this as Dido emerges from under the tree, the bag in his hand.

  The family crowds around him. Andrei stands back at a distance, shading his eyes with his fingers, then rubbing his temple as if anticipating the onslaught of a spell. Mama makes the sign of the cross three times across her breast, then again three times at the goatskin bag. She must think that if it contains the Devil, the power of God will overcome.

  Dido pulls out a box of polished wood, its lid carved with stars and crescent moons, clamped shut with a brass clasp. He lifts the lid and takes out an ornamented object wrapped in a black cloth. It’s a cup. But not an ordinary cup. It’s an ornate work of art, a treasure piece of crafted gold. The body of the cup is a circle of six horses, their heads reined in to the centre, the animals appearing to be running anti-clockwise as if in the frenzy of a whirlwind. A ruby the size of a walnut is set at the bottom of the cup, holding the reins. Andrei’s mother repeats the sign of the cross.

  The spell comes upon Andrei, and in his vision he’s back at home in Ukraine. Forest has changed to meadow. Rainbow clouds lift. His family has vanished, and only the cup remains, the golden halo, and the red sparkle, casting light in all directions.

  The country’s open to the sky. On the lush green meadow, the five Holochuk girls spring up like crocuses from the soil. They join hands and dance in a circle. On the bank of the stream, the homely Martha Shumka washes clothes. She dips an embroidered linen cloth into the water, rinsing then wringing it out. Andrei’s dog Brovko runs back and forth from Martha to the girls, barking in a frenzy.

  Natasha Holochuk steps out from the ring. She lays her embroidered linen cloth on an open patch of grass. At the edge of the field by the burial mounds, Cossacks on horseback form a single line. One rider breaks out from the
formation.

  Andrei sees himself tugging at the reins. All at once he kicks his heels and the horse gallops across the field. Andrei leans down the horse’s side, his head mere inches from the ground. With his teeth he captures the linen and swings his body back upright on his mount.

  As if a hand blots out the sun, the meadow clouds, air heavy with incense and striped the shaded colours of the rainbow, soon fade to a golden shimmer. Andrei hears a distant voice.

  “A legacy of the Skomars?” his father asks.

  The meadow’s disappeared, the golden brilliance snuffed out to a red trickle of light inside the cup, a reflection of sunlight on the ruby.

  Mama draws closer and picks it up, rubbing her fingers over the gold, turning the treasure round and round.

  “Oi,” she says, handing it back to Dido. “Can you sell it to Zitchka? And just look at Andrei. His face is white.” She spits on the ground, and casts a derisive shove of her hand at the cup.

  “It must be worth a fortune,” Dido says, “but it’s not to be sold.”

  “Not something to keep, either,” Mama says. “It’s no business of ours to mess with the Devil’s handiwork.”

  Andrei remains with Dido, still watching the glint of the ruby. Dido quickly wraps the cup in its black cloth and puts it back in the box and into the bag. He makes a half turn, glancing back out of the corner of his eye. Andrei notices the glazed-over look, and he wonders what images Dido might have seen, or is the power given to Andrei alone?

  “Last night I saw rabbits in the bush,” Dido says. “I’m going to set snares.” He takes an axe and two of Zitchka’s iron nails with him.

  “I’m going to help Dido with the rabbits,” Andrei calls to his parents, and he runs to follow Dido before they can reply.

  •••

  Dido doesn’t stay in the bush. He walks about a hundred yards, then veers toward the trail that leads back to the river. Andrei stays just far enough behind that Dido won’t notice him. They walk about a mile from the river to where a coulee begins its steep drop. A third of the way down the coulee’s broad hillside, a large boulder protrudes skyward from out of the earth, from deep in a hole, a flat outcrop twice as wide as it is high. Far below in the coulee, along the bottom, a continuous tangle of grey and leafless poplar mingles with red willow, reaching down and down to the river.

  Safely hidden in a clump of bushes covered with clusters of tiny white flowers, Andrei watches as Dido descends the hillside toward the rock. Dido drops into a hollow, standing still a long moment facing the rock, then slowly paces to one end, then back to the other. He peers around in all directions, then falls to his knees and makes the sign of the cross, all in one motion. Once back on his feet he disappears.

  The minutes pass, a quarter of an hour or more, and finally Dido reappears from behind the rock. He no longer has the goatskin bag. Andrei watches as his grandfather descends further down to the stand of tangled poplars. He chops down a tree, trims off the top, and hacks a four-foot length from the bottom. He notches this piece and the main pole, and nails them together forming a cross. He lifts his creation to his shoulder, dragging it, disappearing further into the bush. What has the cup shown Dido? He’s dragged his poplar cross away as if he were the Holy man Skomar himself.

  Andrei remains hidden in the thick copse of bushes in the upper draw of the coulee. The brightness of the mid-afternoon sun and the chirping of chickadees has changed to the shadowy quiet of dusk. A lone hawk bobs in the sky’s currents as finally Andrei approaches the broad face of the rock. It seems sunk into the earth, along its front a depression, a path worn deep into the ground. Andrei steps down into the hollow, where he has to stand on tiptoe to reach the top of the rock, and it’s wide, extending from side to side at least twelve feet. He doesn’t know how far it sinks into the earth. Its rust-brown face is worn smooth to a height even with Andrei’s shoulders. Above that it’s more abrasive, grown over here and there with lichens. There are several layers of horizontal cracks.

  It seems almost alive, or else a long time sleeping, or slowly waking. The rock slants slightly upward, rising to the west, its crevices at this westward edge seeming to form lips and nostrils, a butt of a chin, creases in a face. It resembles an animal with a thick neck, the rock bulged with massive shoulders. It’s so alone out here, as if stranded like a whale on land. At its eastward edge, the rock is cracked and slumped, weighted, it seems, with age. The colour is not a solid brown, but patched brown on beige and grey. Andrei paces like his dido, running his hand along the wall all the way to where he imagines the mouth formed from the open crack.

  A glint catches his eye. Something shoved into the mouth. It’s a brass button the size of a twenty-five cent piece. He’s never seen anything like it before. Andrei puts the button in his pocket. He steps around to the back of the rock where it’s not nearly so high, no deep depression, instead a few small rocks and scanty shrubs. He notices that the turf here has been disturbed, that Dido must have been digging and must have buried the goatskin bag. He gets down on his knees and moves stones out of the way. It’s then he hears from somewhere behind him the shrill yipping of coyotes, a sound that jabs into the skin at the back of his neck. He turns his head, and out of nowhere, in a sudden roaring gust of wind, a swirl of black wings slaps down at him and then away.

  The wind stops just as suddenly, and all at once there is no sound whatsoever, not the rustle of aspen leaves, not the hum of insects. A red ant crawls up from the base of the rock and Andrei imagines hearing a clatter of its tiny feet. Andrei digs at the disturbed turf, seaching for the bag. Then he does hear a clatter, the shaking of a rattle to his right and then his left. He hears a huffing, snorting, and grunting. He looks up and stares into the eyes of a black bear, upright, the claws of its front feet scraping at the rock, his head tossing from side to side, tongue drooling, teeth flashing. Andrei takes off running all the way to the top of the hill, never once looking back. Only when he thinks he’s far enough away does he dare look. Far below, a crow circles then descends to perch atop the rock. The bear has disappeared.

  May

  Chapter 4

  Tato and Dido have been gone five days. Andrei wonders if they made the walk to Klassen’s farm all in one day. They left early enough in the morning, but would Dido have been able to keep going without stopping to rest? Maybe they caught a ride on somebody’s wagon at the Fish Creek Ferry.

  Andrei likes to think that Tato has left him in charge. Mama didn’t think so. She had at first complained that she was being left in a wilderness, that there might be wolves and bears. She wept that she’d be left all alone out here with the children, and not a neighbour in sight.

  “Andrei and Marusia are not babies,” Tato had said. He insisted that he and Dido had to go. There was nothing else they could do.

  If the Baydas were going to have a cow, a team of oxen, and a plow, there was no other choice. And so they had set out to walk the twenty-five miles back to Rosthern. With Dido needing frequent rest, it might take them all day and part of the next.

  “Look after things,” Tato had said. “Stay here, Andrei. Help your mother and sister. They need a strong man like you to help clear land for the garden. And finish digging the well. Dido says there will be more than enough water six feet down.”

  But surely, Andrei thinks, they will have caught a ride at the ferry...

  A fancy buggy approaches on the trail into the yard. They have a visitor. Is he bringing news from Tato? Andrei runs to meet the buggy. The bay horse is sleek and muscled, with its colt of the same colour running loose beside. A cow is tethered to the surrey.

  “You are Baydas?” The man is the opposite of the delicate sleekness of the horse and carriage. He’s about forty years old, maybe forty-five at the most, short of stature, with a big stomach and thick neck, almost no neck, as if his head is a stone poking up from a prairie hill. His greying moustache is stained brown.

  “I come from Wakaw,” he says, “from my farm. How news t
ravels, you know. I heard that a family had arrived from County Horodenka. Stefan and Paraska Bayda. I came five years ago from the same area.” He gazes over Andrei’s head. Mama and Marusia approach from the garden, both of them with hand on forehead, shielding their eyes from the sun.

  “I am Wasyl Kuzyk,” he tells Andrei. “Many know of me in these parts, but of course not here. Nobody lives here but you. This land was passed over.”

  The women stop by the buda and await the surrey’s approach. Andrei skips along beside it with the colt.

  “Glory to Christ!” says Wasyl Kuzyk in the traditional greeting. He looks over the heads of the women to the garden plot, and then his head makes a complete turn back to his cow tied behind the buggy. He takes a sudden glance at Marusia, covers his mouth with his hand and coughs, then addresses Andrei’s mother. “Glory to Christ,” he says again. “You must be Mrs. Bayda.”

  “Glory forever,” Mama says, returning the greeting. She leans her hoe against the front wall of the buda.

  “This is Mr. Kuzyk,” Andrei says. “Everybody knows him.”

  “And your sister? What is her name?” the man asks, hands patting his knees.

  “That’s Marusia,” Andrei answers him, at the same time attempting to pat the colt, but it skitters away.

  “Marusia! That’s a pretty name. Do you know that here in Canada they would say Mary?” He spouts these words like a schoolteacher, as if to show how much he knows about this new country.

  “You have a family?” Mama asks. “A wife and children?”

  “Oh,” Mr. Kuzyk says, ogling Marusia, “I am still a single man. No time yet for marriage. But one of these days, if the right girl comes along.”

  Days in the field have only begun to weather Marusia’s fair skin. She blushes, eyes to the ground. Andrei notices her discomfort. The visitor stares at her. She unties the knot in her white head scarf only to tie it all the tighter. Andrei can bet that Marusia’s not saving her embroidered wedding scarf for this man who must be more than twice her age.